The Yamaha Netherlands Verhoeven team will be competing with an officially supported Yamaha 450 Four Stroke machine, entered through the famous Yamaha Motor France rally structure, and are aiming to complete . . . within the top five positions. Rider and team owner Frans Verhoeven will be supported by his own experienced staff along with a dedicated Yamaha Motor France mechanic for full technical support.

Here is a video of a brief chat I had with frans on the 12th of January minutes before the start of the first special in Peru. He was pretty miffed with the way the Sherco people had treated him so Im really glad he now has an official Yamaha team.

Sorry about the poor sound quality. You will see Cyril there as well but he was too important to chat to me. The little mud man was probably worrying about the previous days events and how he could stay ahead of Coma.

Yip its sedimentary rock desposited in an old lake as sediments, compressed into rock by the weight of overlying layers, and then finally thrust upwards thanks to the pressure of the Pacific plate crashing into the south American plate. Its the same forces that pushed up the whole Andes mountain range.

The last bit is water erosion that has profiled the layers like that, the harder layers being more resistant to this type of weathering.